It is Saturday morning, and all the household chores that don't get done during the work week are staring me in the face.

A sink full of dishes from dinner last night with friends waits for me. A week's worth of dress clothes is scattered across the bedroom, making me feel like a lazy teen-ager.

Groceries need shopped for. Nothing has been crossed off my list of (stupid) errands. Mail needs opened and the bills paid.

But if I don't pull on my work jeans and my work shirt and tie on my old shoes and head straight to the garden, I will never get there.

Gardening isn't something you do at the end of a Saturday, after doing a bunch of other stuff. Gardening is what you do first, with the full force of your daily energy allotment.

So, on Saturday mornings. I go straight to the garden. I do not pass "Go" and I do not collect $200.

Photo credit: istockphoto.